Using Head To Head trends for football betting and trading

Using Head To Head trends for football betting and trading

When you analyze football matches for betting or trading, you usually pay the most attention to the form stats. The next step is often to check the Head To Head (H2H) trends. It’s always reassuring to see some good form stats being backed by the H2H stats. In this guide, I will explain to you why it’s useful to start with the Head To Head trends for some markets and will show you how to use smart sports stats H2H columns that we offer for all sports and markets.

What is Head To Head?

H2H is simply a record of two teams playing against each other. Depending on sport, country and competition, the two teams will play each other at least twice (home and away) during the season or year. The H2H records are usually used to find apparent patterns and trends such as one team’s dominance, low or high goal scoring affairs, ‘friendly’ or very feisty matches with plenty of bookings and other patterns. Take for example derby matches between teams for the same city. You may often hear people saying that the stats forms go out of the window for those encounters. Therefore it’s possible to identify some good betting and trading opportunities very quickly just by looking at some solid H2H records.

H2H trends (Find the best patterns in seconds)

When you browse our stats tables, you will notice two H2H columns:

H2H No – it’s simply number of the H2H matches between teams two teams excluding friendlies (maximum of last 8 matches)

H2H % or H2H Avg – it’s a percentage of a given outcome e.g. BTTS or the average number of goals in those H2H meetings etc.

Those two columns are usually displayed after the blue column with the AVG % stats. See the example below:

In order to find the best H2H records, please click on the H2H % header (see the green arrow on the screenshot above). For example, we have the Over 2.5 goals stats above and after sorting the stats by the H2H %, we can see the matches with the biggest % of over 2.5 goals in the H2H matches.

Please note

The first match on the list (Kiel vs Union) shows 100% for the H2H over 2.5 goals, however, it’s based only on 1 match, as this is how many times those two teams faced each other in the recent years.

Filtering the H2H No (Number of H2H matches)

Let’s filter the stats and look for matches that had 8 H2H meetings. Just type 8 in the H2H No column as shown on the picture below:

Looking for value bets and trades with the H2H trends

After sorting the over 2.5 goals stats table above, we can notice that one match (Rangers vs Aberdeen) stands out with the H2H trends % and can be backed at very good odds of 2.00 (Evens). This fixture finished over 2.5 goals 7 out of 8 last matches.

The odds for this match finishing in 3 or more goals are around 2.00, which means that the bookies give it around 50% chance.

Are the good H2H trends on their own enough to place the bet?

Would I back the over 2.5 goals in that match at those odds based only on the 7/8 previous matches finished in 3 or more goals? No. The goals markets are very specific and require more analysis before taking low or high goals scoring positions. I would like to know about key players availability for this match (especially strikers) – I would rather want to see them playing. But I would mind for the key defenders to miss out on that match. Furthermore, I would check the weather forecast for the match time and ensure that the playing surface is not unplayable (heavy snow or rain). It’s January in Scotland at the end of the day… the KO is scheduled late in the evening. I would try to find out as much as possible about the teams’ morale and motivation etc. After checking those aspects and some more information, I would have a better chance of winning this bet. Thanks to the H2H trends, I have a great starting point.

Other opportunities based on the H2H Trends

One of the best uses of the Head To Head trends are Bookings and Sending Off markets. They make more sense to use than the form bookings stats. You can probably recall some very brutal matches with plenty of cards and you will expect certain rivalries to produce similar outcomes again. Sevilla vs Betis, Liverpool vs Everton, Roma vs Lazio, Real vs Barcelona are only a few of the pairs that may come to you when thinking about feisty encounters. Our Bookings H2H trends will point out many more of interesting patterns. Have a look at the example below:

Matches sorted by highest over 5.5 yellow cards. First one up Espanyol vs Sevilla:

And the cherry on top of the cake:

Guimaraes vs Estoril produced 3 matches with over 0.5 red cards and 2 matches with over 1.5 red cards in their last 8 H2H meetings.

Perhaps Abner took his first opportunity to revenge something from his last encounter with Guimaraes as he only lasted 9 minutes before being shown the red card.

That’s why I truly rate the H2H trends and would recommend it to anyone to use them more in their betting & trading. Best of luck!

Share your experiences and knowledge of H2H trends in the comments section below.

Football Over 2.5 Goals markets are one of the most popular football [more]

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